A Look At How Hussain Sajwani Operates DAMAC Group

Hussain Sajwani is a United Arab Emirates businessman who has successfully led his company, DAMAC Group, for over 30 years. He founded DAMAC Group in 1982 when he established a catering business. This catering business soon expanded into providing food to organizations across the Middle East.

One of his proudest achievements occurred during Desert Storm when he provided food to the United States army that was based there during that war. He proudly shows a plaque he was given in honor of his outstanding service. Read more: DAMAC Chairman Relishes His Roots | The National

In 2002, Hussain Sajwani established Damac Properties in Dubai. He specializes in acquiring land that he develops into luxury residential and retail spaces. The residential homes are primarily marketed to high net worth foreigners who want to own a home in the UAE. In order to build these properties, he has partnered with a number of global luxury brands that design some of the features of these properties such as the interiors.

One of the luxury brands that Hussain Sajwani has partnered with is the Trump Organization. Hussain Sajwani built a huge development outside of Dubai which includes luxury villas, apartments, and places designated for retail. The golf course that is part of the project is named after Donald Trump and is called the Trump International Course Dubai. The Trump Organization manages the golf course while DAMAC Group sells the properties that surround it.

At the DAMAC Group, Hussain Sajwani says he has three main principles when running the company. The first is that he buys the land for the projects outright with no loans. His second rule is that the escrow account for each project is completely separate so he doesn’t use the cash generated by one project to fund another.

Third, he maintains a certain level of cash reserves that are parked in bonds such as government treasuries. He does this so that even if the world stock markets enter a bear market he will still be able to stick to his construction plans.